


Pray With Me

by purple_bookcover



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Battlefield, CF!Marianne, Enemies, Everyone else is dead, F/M, Grimdark, Vaginal Sex, fucking on the battlefield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:54:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_bookcover/pseuds/purple_bookcover
Summary: Ashe and Marianne are the only two survivors of the battle between Dimitri and Edelgard's armies. If one kills the other, they could win the war, but is there even anything worth winning with everyone else dead?
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Marianne von Edmund
Kudos: 23
Collections: Marianne Birthday 2020





	Pray With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Marianne Birthday Celebration: Out...doors...? I mean...it does take place outdoors, but...
> 
> Uh
> 
> Anyway...when I was looking up pairings for this event this one was also super rare. I love taking "soft" characters and putting them in the darkest fucking stories I can (see: Ashe/Ignatz). So. This. Good luck!

When Ashe finally stops shooting, his fingertips are numb. His arms quiver as he lowers his bow. Blood rushes into extremities that have pulled on that weapon for hours. 

He is alone.

Somehow, he did not notice when the roar around him ceased. The echoes still crackle in his ears like a river rushing past. But there is no river. There is nothing but a barren, burned out field stretching to every horizon. And scattered over it like ash in a cooled firepit are bodies. 

Ashe picks his way among the fallen, stepping carefully and deliberately on shaky legs. He looks down to avoid crushing the corpses. 

He knows every single body he walks over. Of course he does. They were once his classmates: Felix, angry even in death; Dimitri, shielded by Dedue eternally; Dorothea, hands burned by magic relentlessly hurled at her enemies. And for what? She lay as dead as the rest of them.

Ashe doesn’t think about that, despite how many of these bodies have arrows jutting from chests and necks. He looks up, risking stumbling. Nothing could be worse than continuing to peer at those still, shocked faces. 

He stops when he spots someone only a few paces away. They carry a bloodied sword – not just bloodied, though. It is alive, the yellowed bone of the blade writhing with ancient life and crackling with magic. 

The figure turns toward Ashe. For a moment, they are indistinct on the dim battlefield, a shadow, a whisper, a...

#

“Ghost.”

Ashe gasps, reeling away from the spectral figure in the cathedral of Garreg Mach. The figure turns, blinking at him in confusion. 

“Ashe?” 

“M-Marianne?” he says. “Marianne, is that you?” 

The figure steps forward, into a sliver of moonlight slanting through the windows of the chapel. In truth, it makes her look no less ghostly, but at least now Ashe recognizes the pale face before him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize it was you.” 

“Oh, no, it’s my fault,” Marianne says. She casts her eyes down, wrings her hands, shifts from foot to foot. 

“Not at all,” Ashe says. “I was just looking for a quiet place to think for a bit. Were you here praying?”

She nods, head still bowed.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” he says. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Wait.” She grabs his wrist before he can leave. An instant later, she releases him with a gasp. “I’m sorry.” Her hands fly up to cover her mouth.

“It’s alright,” Ashe says. “Hey, why don’t we sit? Some company might be nice.”

“Company...” She rolls the word around in her mouth.

“Yeah,” Ashe says. “Come on.” 

He leads her to a pew and they sit. The creak of the bench is loud in the deserted chapel. Their classmates are likely all sleeping, exhausted from another day as students of the Officers Academy. But hey, they’re training for the potential of fighting in a war. They need to be at their best.

Secretly, Ashe hopes it’ll never come to that, that they’ll never have to put what they learn to real use in a real war. He came here to help people, not to mete out death on some grim battlefield somewhere. But it’s clear that tensions already exist between Dimitri and Edelgard. That distant, gray battlefield looms along the horizon, inevitable, inescapable. 

He clasps his hands and bows his head, praying that he’s wrong, that he’ll never have to fight his classmates in a true battle. 

“Oh.” 

He opens his eyes at Marianne’s soft exclamation. 

“Are you OK?” she says.

He doesn’t realize until this moment that a tear slipped from the corner of his eye as he prayed. He wipes it away. “Yeah,” he says. “I was just thinking...” 

She waits. He likes her patient silence, her calm presence. There’s something about being near Marianne that makes him feel like his prayer to the goddess has already been answered. 

“I just would like us all to continue being friends for a long time,” Ashe says. 

She smiles, just a little. It’s beautiful. “I would too.” 

He can’t seem to look away as she goes on smiling at him, serene and subtle, but there all the same. It’s brighter than the moonlight, but does not glare or glint. 

“What?” 

He blinks. The words arrive all on their own. “I like it when you smile. I’d like it if you had reasons to smile a lot more.” 

Her eyelashes flutter. Color rises to Marianne’s cheeks. “Oh. Oh, I see.” 

“I just mean,” Ashe says in a rush, “I think all your friends would agree, wouldn’t they?”

“I-I suppose,” she says. 

Ashe swallows. 

“I need to go,” Marianne says. She stands, looming over him in the dark like a specter. 

“I see,” he says. Maybe he should try harder to stop her, but she leaves so quickly, vanishing like a ghost.

#

Marianne drags Blutgang with her through the desecrated battlefield. Or perhaps sanctified, for this is what they wanted, isn’t it? Bloodshed, battle, victory. There is no victory to be found here, not when she is the only one standing as far as she can see.

She wants to heal them. If any of them, friend or foe, moved at all she would rush to pour white magic into their body, hoping to save anyone, anyone at all. Yet everything around her lay entirely still. There is no one to save.

She hears him before she sees him. Marianne whirls, immediately recognizing the archer blinking at her. Beneath the blood splattered on his clothes and face and hair, he is still wide-eyed and lovely like she remembers. 

“Ashe.”

His name jolts him. He raises his bow, aiming an arrow at her heart. Even though his arms quiver with exhaustion, she knows he won’t miss so she doesn’t bother running or crouching. 

She raises her sword. That is what this place is for, right? She’s supposed to fight. They may be the only two left, but that is one heartbeat too many. 

Fine, she decides. She probably won’t reach him before he puts an arrow through her throat, but there is only one path remaining to her.

She charges. Marianne expects to feel the dull thud of an arrow any second. She doesn’t know exactly what the pain will be like, but from what she’s seen it must be extraordinary. 

It never arrives. She leaps over bodies, boots sinking into ground softened by soaking up blood, and gets all the way to Ashe before she realizes she’s still alive and unharmed. 

She stops with Blutgang raised over her head. Her whole torso and chest are exposed, unprotected. Though Ashe has an arrow nocked and pointed at her heart, he does not loose it. They both freeze, alone despite the bodies all around them. 

“We’re the only ones left,” he says. 

“Yes,” she says. 

“If you kill me, you’ll win.” 

She considers this. “There isn’t anything left to win.” Marianne lowers her sword, even with his arrow still threatening her. It seems a hollow attempt at intimidation. 

Ashe lowers his bow. They are both undefended now, but it doesn’t feel like it really matters. If Marianne dies, she supposes that will mean Dimitri wins, but wins what? Ashe is the only one left and he’s not going to be king. There’s nothing and no one to rule. They’re all dead here on this field. Someone else will probably rise up to take Fodlan. Claude? Where is Claude? Far from here. He was always the most clever of the house leaders. 

Marianne should have stayed with him. She could have. He gave her the option well after she made her desire to join Edelgard’s cause clear. 

“I believe in what she’s doing,” Marianne had said. 

Claude did not say anything about crests. He could have, but he didn’t. He didn’t talk about the way crests bound people to fate, the way they made people into monsters, the way they twisted and destroyed and subjugated. 

He simply nodded and offered his hand. 

“Be well, Marianne,” he’d said and then he’d left. 

And so had she. When Edelgard fled the monastery to pursue her goal, Marianne went with her. There were a few others: Sylvain, bitter and broken; Shamir, distrustful of Dimitri’s eventual rule; Lysithea, with hate burning in her heart. The lines between the houses dissolved, leaving only opposing armies.

“Do you want to pray?” Ashe says. 

Marianne blinks. She could ask for what, but she supposes the answer is around her. Will the goddess take pity on the souls scattered like ashes across this ghastly graveyard? Marianne can’t say, but no one else is going to pray for them.

She nods, setting her sword on the ground. Ashe drops his bow unceremoniously, seeming almost disgusted by the trusty weapon. 

Marianne holds out her hands and Ashe steps closer to clasp them. They stand nearly chest to chest, only separated by their hands, and it is at this distance that Marianne can pick out the specters clouding Ashe’s eyes. She tilts her head forward and he accepts, resting his forehead against hers. 

They say nothing, but she knows he’s closed his eyes as well, knows those little shuddering breaths are his prayers escaping trembling and thin. His hands quiver in hers and Marianne finds herself squeezing to reassure him, to comfort an enemy who shot down so many of the people she loved. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. She does not think that one is for the goddess. 

Marianne eases away, sees the wetness on his cheeks and hates herself even as she catches the tears on a finger. 

He unsheathes a knife. She startles but doesn’t even unclasp their hands to jerk away. Ashe presents the blade to her. 

“You should be the one who wins,” he says. 

She shakes her head. 

“Why?”

She doesn’t know what answer might satisfy him. He certainly doesn’t want to hear that it doesn’t matter, that there is no winner when everyone is dead. A lifetime ago he found her in a cathedral. They prayed together then, too. 

“Do you remember that time back at the Officers Academy?” she says. 

He nods.

“I never told you,” Marianne says, “but before you arrived, I was praying to die, praying for the goddess to take me.” 

His eyelashes flutter as he blinks at her. It’s incongruously pretty in this place. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s good that you found me that day,” she says. “And it’s good you found me today. It means … we’re not alone. We’re not dead. For some reason, we’re both still here.”

He looks doubtful. He’s trying to hide it, but if there’s one feeling Marianne understands better than anyone else, it’s the one twisting Ashe’s mouth right now: Guilt for being the one who’s still alive. She can almost taste it. 

And then she leans forward, pressing her mouth against his, and she does taste it, every bitter and sweet note of it. 

Marianne still isn’t quite sure why she kissed him when she frees her other hand so she can thread her fingers through Ashe’s hair. His arms slide around her waist, pulling her body in close against his. There’s something reassuring about the heat of another body close to hers, the smell of sweat and exertion, the grime and dirt in his hair. 

She’s sure she’s just as disgusting, but Ashe apparently doesn’t care. He crowds closer, as though her lips are still too far from his. His tongue licks into her mouth, searching for yet more. 

They break apart gasping. Marianne thinks that might be it, he might leave, but his hands start sliding higher. The knife is still in one hand and he presents it to her again. This time she takes it. Perhaps he still wants her to plunge it into his chest, but she flings it away. 

Ashe’s eyes flicker toward the discarded blade. It was the final tether to their true purpose in coming to this place, the final barrier of propriety left between them. With it gone, it’s clear what they will do. 

He does not hesitate longer and neither does Marianne. When he returns to her mouth, she kisses him back, tugging him along. They should leave this horrible place, if they can. It’s wrong to stay here, especially for this. 

As Marianne stumbles backward her foot strikes a body and she trips. They tumble to the ground together. Ashe lands on top of her, but he’s not as heavy as she expects. She heard Dimitri was rationing, supplies running low as he threw everything into chasing Edelgard, but she didn’t really appreciate how much until now.

He rolls, placing Marianne on top of him. He feels even more gaunt when Marianne unhooks his armor and coat and runs her hands up the tunic beneath. Bracing against his chest is a somewhat horrifying prospect. She can feel the ribs beneath. But such concerns are small and faraway as he hikes up the hem of her dress and she picks at the laces of his pants. 

It’s hurried and inelegant, fumbling and sloppy and hasty. They are both mostly dressed when she lowers onto his cock. Her skirt falls around her, but his hands remain beneath it, clinging to her thighs as she pushes against that bony chest and rides him. There’s death on every side of them, but Marianne doesn’t care as heat pumps into her body. She didn’t even realize how tense and wary and taut she was until this moment, with Ashe ratcheting up the tension to a delicious high. 

He must plant a foot because he starts thrusting up into her. Marianne hitches forward and he catches her, hugs her against his chest as they rock together, their cries far too loud and joyful among the horror of the battlefield. 

It’s outrageous, insulting, sacrilegious. Marianne tries to beg for forgiveness but when she opens her mouth all that comes out is, “Oh, oh, goddess.” 

Perhaps Ashe feels the same. Or perhaps he takes the sound for pleasure rather than atonement. Either way, he pounds up into her harder, squeezing her body against his. Marianne digs her nails into whatever she can reach, arching in his hold as she rocks her hips back. 

He hisses some curse – at her, at himself, at the goddess, she cannot say – and Marianne knows it won’t be long. While she still has time, she grabs Ashe by the hair and presses their mouths together. The noise of their peaks is smothered by each other’s lips as their bodies boil over, warmth gushing out of Marianne even as he fills her. 

They remain on the battlefield for too long, far too long, lying in each other’s arms, sweaty and filthy and wretched. 

And then they leave, heading in opposite directions, carrying nothing but the bloody weapons they arrived with. 

They are the victors, but there is no one to cheer for them but ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!


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